The ability to speak more than one language informs many writers of fiction, but analysis of Booker Prize shortlists suggests this is not so important any more.
Once dismissed as a mere ‘love story’, Daphne du Maurier’s masterpiece has transfixed generations of readers.
One of the original plates illustrating the novel Pamela, by Samuel Richardson.
Etched by L. Truchy and A. Benoist after paintings by J. Highmore - Houghton Library
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote letters to his children from Father Christmas every year for 23 years. And they’re filled with elves, goblins and playful polar bears.
‘Man Combating Ignorance’ – what’s science’s role?
Century of Progress Records, 1927-1952, University of Illinois at Chicago Library
There’s no shortage of problems facing humanity. Science’s role in how to tackle them has long been debated – including memorably by two of the 20th century’s greatest literary figures.
Grotesques, prattlers, hysterical women … historically, spinsters have had a raw deal in fiction. But astonishingly, the situation for older single ladies in contemporary novels has scarcely improved.
Emma Thompson as Elinor Dashwood in the 1995 film of Sense and Sensibility: a competent moral agent drawing only on her intelligence and experience.
Columbia Pictures Corporation
This year is the bicentenary of Jane Austen’s death and her celebrity continues to grow. But relegating Austen’s work to plots about ‘whether the heroine gets her man’ belittles her achievement.